Accounting Experience Question

  • Creator
    Topic
  • #182672
    NumberCruncher4lyfe
    Participant

    Just curious! Does having accounting clerk experience count as accounting experience for future jobs and for the CPA licensure? Also, does having the experience as a clerk help me get into public accounting along with passing the CPA license?

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)
  • Author
    Replies
  • #499607
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Whether it will count for the experience requirements varies from state to state. In KY, it does…or at least I hope it does. 🙂 I'm waiting on the board to process my experience certificates right now, but from reading the various relevant parts of the KY code I'm quite sure that it will count. However, the requirements vary a lot from state-to-state…some accept anything related to accounting (like KY), some require that the experience be in audit, some that it be in public accounting, etc. etc.

    As for whether it will help you get into public accounting, what part of public accounting do you want to get into? If you're looking for Big 4, then I don't know enough about them to help. 🙂 If you're looking for anything in public, then my answer would be that it can't hurt, but it won't count as much as working in public accounting. (If you work as a Clerk for 3 years and then as an Accountant in Private for 3 years, you're not probably going to be able to switch to a Senior Accountant in Public like someone who had worked in Public for 6 years, cause even though you have seen accounting work, you haven't seen the work that you'll be doing in public. Working on a company's internal records is very different from tax or auditing, and those two categories make up the majority of public accounting.) So, if my options were work at the bank, the grocery store, or the private clerk, I'd say that the private clerk would be far better than the others for future public options. However, clerk in private vs clerk in public, the clerk in public will get you farther in public. Make sense?

    In private, though, I think that having clerk experience is a great thing. Someday I'd like to be in my boss's boss's position – he's officially a “director”, I think, reports to the CFO and probably has around 50 people working under him. So, my dreams aren't in the clerk's room. 🙂 However, I think that working as a clerk, and working each step on my way up, will make me better able to fill a director/controller/CFO/etc position, because I will actually know what daily life is like for the people below me. So, if your goal is to work in public long enough to switch back to private eventually, then I think that the clerk experience is very beneficial. Even if you skip the private steps between clerk and, say, CFO, I still think that having seen private accounting at the bottom will help you succeed at the top.

    #499672
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Whether it will count for the experience requirements varies from state to state. In KY, it does…or at least I hope it does. 🙂 I'm waiting on the board to process my experience certificates right now, but from reading the various relevant parts of the KY code I'm quite sure that it will count. However, the requirements vary a lot from state-to-state…some accept anything related to accounting (like KY), some require that the experience be in audit, some that it be in public accounting, etc. etc.

    As for whether it will help you get into public accounting, what part of public accounting do you want to get into? If you're looking for Big 4, then I don't know enough about them to help. 🙂 If you're looking for anything in public, then my answer would be that it can't hurt, but it won't count as much as working in public accounting. (If you work as a Clerk for 3 years and then as an Accountant in Private for 3 years, you're not probably going to be able to switch to a Senior Accountant in Public like someone who had worked in Public for 6 years, cause even though you have seen accounting work, you haven't seen the work that you'll be doing in public. Working on a company's internal records is very different from tax or auditing, and those two categories make up the majority of public accounting.) So, if my options were work at the bank, the grocery store, or the private clerk, I'd say that the private clerk would be far better than the others for future public options. However, clerk in private vs clerk in public, the clerk in public will get you farther in public. Make sense?

    In private, though, I think that having clerk experience is a great thing. Someday I'd like to be in my boss's boss's position – he's officially a “director”, I think, reports to the CFO and probably has around 50 people working under him. So, my dreams aren't in the clerk's room. 🙂 However, I think that working as a clerk, and working each step on my way up, will make me better able to fill a director/controller/CFO/etc position, because I will actually know what daily life is like for the people below me. So, if your goal is to work in public long enough to switch back to private eventually, then I think that the clerk experience is very beneficial. Even if you skip the private steps between clerk and, say, CFO, I still think that having seen private accounting at the bottom will help you succeed at the top.

    #499609
    mla1169
    Participant

    Jobs are going to be looking for their unique experience requirements. For example, I've done everything that can be done in accounting-from payroll to fixed assets, accounts payable to financial statements. BUT I've been turned down for jobs because I've never used their particular software, because I've never worked in their particular industry, etc. so your experience may or may not count depending on a perspective employers exact needs.

    Licensing is state specific. In MA, the experience has to be in public accounting.

    FAR- 77
    AUD -49, 71, 84
    REG -56,75!
    BEC -75

    Massachusetts CPA (non reporting) since 3/12.

    #499673
    mla1169
    Participant

    Jobs are going to be looking for their unique experience requirements. For example, I've done everything that can be done in accounting-from payroll to fixed assets, accounts payable to financial statements. BUT I've been turned down for jobs because I've never used their particular software, because I've never worked in their particular industry, etc. so your experience may or may not count depending on a perspective employers exact needs.

    Licensing is state specific. In MA, the experience has to be in public accounting.

    FAR- 77
    AUD -49, 71, 84
    REG -56,75!
    BEC -75

    Massachusetts CPA (non reporting) since 3/12.

    #499611
    NumberCruncher4lyfe
    Participant

    @Lilla ….you make some very good points. When I graduated in May I didn't find a job in public accounting at all and accepted the first thing that came at me relative to accounting. Unfortunately, the position is mostly data entry with light accounting. I have been actively looking in the past 3 months for public accounting experience but I hadn't had any luck which is why im just curious to know if my current experience would look good after I pass the CPA. Do you by any chance know when are the common months of the year that the firms begin to hire?

    #499675
    NumberCruncher4lyfe
    Participant

    @Lilla ….you make some very good points. When I graduated in May I didn't find a job in public accounting at all and accepted the first thing that came at me relative to accounting. Unfortunately, the position is mostly data entry with light accounting. I have been actively looking in the past 3 months for public accounting experience but I hadn't had any luck which is why im just curious to know if my current experience would look good after I pass the CPA. Do you by any chance know when are the common months of the year that the firms begin to hire?

    #499613
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Do you want to work in tax, or in audit, or do you not care either way?

    In tax, most firms want to have people in their positions and ready to roll when tax season hits, so from my observations most tax hiring happens between October and December (after Oct 15th the partners etc have room to breathe and thus time to hire, but they usually want it squared away before the holidays so that the employees know where the bathroom is before they start getting slammed with returns). In audit, I don't really have any clue, but it seems like audit's busy season starts a bit earlier and their deadline is a bit sooner, so I would guess that audit hiring might pick up earlier in the fall, but this is entirely conjecture!

    #499677
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Do you want to work in tax, or in audit, or do you not care either way?

    In tax, most firms want to have people in their positions and ready to roll when tax season hits, so from my observations most tax hiring happens between October and December (after Oct 15th the partners etc have room to breathe and thus time to hire, but they usually want it squared away before the holidays so that the employees know where the bathroom is before they start getting slammed with returns). In audit, I don't really have any clue, but it seems like audit's busy season starts a bit earlier and their deadline is a bit sooner, so I would guess that audit hiring might pick up earlier in the fall, but this is entirely conjecture!

    #499615
    NumberCruncher4lyfe
    Participant

    @Lilla I prefer to be in audit more than tax…. thanks for the insight

    #499679
    NumberCruncher4lyfe
    Participant

    @Lilla I prefer to be in audit more than tax…. thanks for the insight

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.